Just Words – Panta Rhei Enterprise

Rupture

Rupture!

Writing gives me a chance to think. It does not happen very often. I need to make it happen. Often. As often as I can. The thinking. The writing helps. Helps me remember. Helps me to slow down. Slow down my thinking. When it’s slow, it gets deeper. Alright. That’s a cliché. No, it’s not. Who said that. I got interrupted. Now my stream of thoughts has been disrupted. How did that happen?

Let me go back to the chance to think. About disruption. Disruptive. Is this good or bad? The question is too simple, too linear. Just one alternative. And there are so many. Alternatives. Alternatives after a disruption. It’s complex. Linear is just one of a zillion alternatives. Is zillion a number? Apparently not. I learnt that at trivia night three weeks ago. Interrupted again. I was thinking about disruption. In recent posts, I was talking about AI. Generative AI. Technology. And now disruption. Disruptive technologies.

No, I am not getting all businessy in this blog. Business folk like to talk about disruptive technologies. And so do I. It happens all the time. The disruption. Film disrupted theater. TV disrupted movie theaters. Video cassettes disrupted movie theaters too. VCR. VCR disrupted BetaMax. BetaMax was of better quality. It was discontinued. VCR prevailed. Until … Until the DVD disruption came. Netflix used to send out VCR cassettes. Streaming services disrupted the DVD. During COVID lockdown new films were streamed. The theaters were closed.

Is this all good or bad? You decide. All of you. Each time you decide. Again. And again. Each of you. Separately. And together. It’s complex. It can’t be linear. There are a zillion alternatives. And sometimes only one seems to prevail. For a short time. A disruption. And another one. In different areas. Not just film and theater and video. A disruption. Disruptive technologies. And we are taken by surprise. At times.

Disruptive technologies. And since 2022 we have been talking about AI. A disruption? AI disruption. Sure. What will it bring? What will we gain? What will we lose? In learning and for teachers, we read about new tools. The lesson plan that writes itself? The text the kids will read that was generated on the teacher’s computer. The feedback the machine gave, the errors corrected. With new errors?

Rupture.

Just words: education

Hey Friend,

One word: Education. 
Education. Educate. Educare. Educere. .edu Edutainment. Educational.
All Just words. Old words. We still use them. 
To argue. To pay lip service. To educate.

I have not done this in a while. Writing about Just words. The first word I played with in a blog was word. Now I am a little rusty, but I like to know where things come from. So let’s start with that.

Going back. The old Romans. Latin. Education. Educate. From educare. Or was it educere. It was both. So I read. A word with two roots. Roots. Roots and bringing up. Educating. As they say: parents should give their children two things. Roots. And. Wings. Education can help do that. I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back. To the origin of the word. The verb. Educate from educare = to bring up, to nourish. Educate from educere = to bring forth, to drag out.

To nourish someone. Sounds nice. To nourish a young child. To nourish oneself. Maybe the old Romans, speaking Latin, also nourished animals. To nourish your pet. To nourish your pig. To nourish a duck. Well, they were stuffed. With too much food. Down their throat. So that they become fat. And fat makes things tasty. If you like this sort of thing. The duck was ready to be eaten. The liver to be devoured. Educare = to nourish, to stuff. With food. For foie gras. To be devoured. Getting the children educated. Ready to be … Yea, ready for what? To be … plump enough? To be … agreeable enough? To be … fit? To fit in? To be devoured?

Would it not be better to link education to dragging out – rather than stuffing in. It’s a play with words. And it’s a serious game. Stuffing in – dragging out. Stuffing out – dragging in. No, that doesn’t work. Stop playing – be serious – it’s education. No, keep playing – it’s education. Educere. Dragging something out. Bring it forth. It doesn’t mean you prolong it. It does not have to take so much time. Drag something out. What’s that something? In education? In our children? Not that the older ones don’t need no education. Another brick in the wall. There are things in our children, we can bring out. How? It’s complex. But the first step is easy. Stop. Stop force-feeding them fatty stuff.

Have their mouths open to say things they like, not to shove down things you like.

Spring cleaning. Late?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

And done. 
Not gone. 
Everything in its place. 
And the plans laid out.

Hey, Friend,

This blog is about complexity and change, the complexity of change, at times on language, on learning, and on language learning. You knew that, right? That remains so, and I am bringing back two ideas that I tried out on Texterium:

Just words: Whenever I have a word that is used when we talk about complexity, change, language, learning, it might be good to play with it, to get to know it better.
Backsight: Looking at print, audio, video – again on complexity, change, language, learning – to remember, reflect, and review.

I hope you will enjoy the reading and browsing at least half as much as I enjoy the writing.